soup kitchen

AustraliaのABC newsから。Christmasの装飾は、お店で売られている豪華なものでなくていいのです。クリスマスを祝おうとする気持ちが大事。とても素敵なお話です。

We give meaning to Christmas

I never could have imagined how festive, fun and colorful rubbish could be.
By the time I arrived on the day of filming, the family had been hard at work all morning, stringing beer and bourbon cans together, taping tinsel to burger boxes, wrapping bottles of bleach and painting up their favourite breakfast cereal boxes.
It looked amazing. In the words of little Baka, 'It looks rainbow."
Whether you are religious or not, there is a real power in Christmas.
It is the one day that almost everyone in the western world stops and goes to large lengths to be with their friends and family.
It is the one day that was able to stop fighting during a world war.
It is the one day that most people have at some point thought "hmm, maybe I should go help the homeless at that soup kitchen some time".
But does Christmas still make you groan?
Don't worry, I haven't always been such a Christmas elf... I'm not religious and at one stage I was the scrooge... questioning the commerce, the wastage of paper and unwanted gifts, the over catering, over eating and over boozing.
But then one day I realised that I had to have respect for any tradition that could stop half the world, stop the greed and give itself over to love, family and giving.
So if Christmas does make you groan, then dig down beneath the commerce and the tinsel. Look beyond the traffic jams and maddened shoppers. Pause for long enough and you will see the potential of Christmas, the power of a tradition that makes people stop.
And just like Dorothy did, you could turn rubbish into rainbows.

https://open.abc.net.au/posts/christmas-in-camooweal-52az6or

ここで一番気になった表現はsoup kitchenでした。soupもkitchenも誰もがお馴染みの単語ですが、soup kitchenでなにか食べ物を作る場所なのではないかと思い、『ジーニアス英和大辞典』(第5版、大修館書店)で調べてみますと「（生活困窮者・罹災者のための）スープ接待所、無料食堂」とありました。これは、日本で災害支援の際に行われる「炊き出し」にあたるものですね。
以前にもこのブログで取り上げられています。(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/A30/20110201/1296553780)

ごみ(rubbish)に色を塗って、Christmasのdecorationをしてしまおうと考えたDorothyさんはとても素敵な方だと思います。みなさんに、ぜひリンク先のこの記事に関する動画を見ていただきたいと思い、紹介させていただきました。子どもたちもDorothyさんも本当に楽しそうな様子で、Christmasがどれだけ大事な家族の行事なのかがわかるような気がします。日本のChristamasとは全く違いますね。(Nat)